They say I think too much

From Government to Governance

Yeah, its another book review. What can I do – I am on reading frenzy these days. Gotta finish many text-books in this month only. 😛

From Government to Governance : A Brief Survey of the Indian Experience

By Kuldeep Mathur

Rating : 4/5

Kuldeep Mathur has written widely on subjects of Public Administration. This one is his not-so popular(important) published work. As per the new course for Mains, the issue of ‘Good Governance’ is becoming a vital part of the exam. As its, tagline says, it’s a brief survey of Indian experience on Good Governance. It provides the over-view of the major transformation in the Governance in India,the change in the role of the bureaucracy,market & social groups.

It is an introduction to the concept of governance and the kind of transformation of the state that is taking place in India. It explores the way cooperative networks of state, market and society are taking over roles that were earlier confined to the state alone. This transformation leads to many challenges. Existing institutions of governance have to be so strengthened that they are able to face new demands. New institutions have to be forged that can fulfill the functions of coordination, control and regulation.

Reading it will provide one the whole perspective over the transformation in the statecraft of country. If you are one of those, critical of government, I plead you to go through it. It’s a short text-book & won’t take much time. One will come to know how the state changed its perception from a centralized development accelerator to control-command centralized system to liberalized-management based public-private cooperative system, and finally to tri-party (state,market & civil society) inter-dependent mechanism.

I understand that the above changes,still, have not changed the societal reality drastically, but it does provides glimpse of what may become of State (& society) in future.

If you are preparing for UPSC, you can surely pick it up & easily go through it. It will help in subjects of Polity, Economy , Social Welfare, Public Admin & Governance. And If you don’t belong to this category but like reading Non-fiction, I will plead(not recommend but plead) you to read it.

Arigato 🙂

P.S – I am concerned that this blog is becoming a book-review blog. I will surely put something different, next week. Promise. 🙂

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3 thoughts on “From Government to Governance”

I wish these books were written in an entertaining way, in addition to being informative. That will help non-fiction book readers (not text-book readers) like me to more willingly read these kinda books…